This chapter describes management strategies to
increase air transport efficiency, including strategies that encourage use of
alternative modes, reduce total air traffic, increase air travel system
efficiencies, and reduce specific aviation external costs such as air and noise
pollution.

Description

Aviation TDM
includes efforts to encourage more efficient use of air transportation
resources, and reduce excessive air travel. Many specific TDM strategies can
apply to aviation (Whitelegg and Cambridge 2004):

·Congestion Pricing can
be used to manage airport congestion and allocate landing slots. Just as
airlines offer lower fares during off-peak seasons, they could more frequently
offer lower fares for flights during off-peak times of day.

·Least Cost Planning can
be applied to aviation planning and investments, so alternative solutions can
be considered equally with aviation investments and subsidies. For example,
investments to improve express rail and bus service may be more cost effective
than expanding airports to accommodate growth in medium-distance (100-800
miles) trips.

·Eliminate tax exemptions and low tax rates on
airports and aviation fuels that tend to favor air travel over other
alternative modes. Eliminate duty-free shops at airports, which encourages air
travel.

·Support development of fast and efficient rail
transport on busy corridors to compete with air transport for medium-distance
journeys.

Why Manage Air Travel?

Aviation provides significant benefits to
users and the economy, but it also has significant economic and environmental
costs (Davidson, Wit and Dings, 2003; Somerville, 2003; Whitelegg and Cambridge, 2004; Bows and Anderson, 2007).
Air traffic is one of the fastest growing uses of energy, and a major source of
noise and air pollution.

Air transport has relatively high emission
rates per passenger-kilometre, especially for short distances (less than 1000
km), because emissions are particularly high during take-off and landing. High
altitude emissions contribute more to global warming per unit than other types
of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 1999; Lee and Sausen, 2000).
Air travel’s contribution to global warming is predicted to increase from about
3.5% up to 5-15% of total human impacts if current trends continue (T&E,
1999a).

Newer aircraft are more fuel efficient and
produce less noise and air pollution, and airport authorities are incorporating
sustainability objectives in their planning, but their effectiveness is
limited, and such gains are often overwhelmed by growth in traffic volumes. As
a result, the total economic, social and environmental costs of air transport
are increasing in most regions.

Annual
Growth Rates (T&E 1999a)

Flights 3.4%

Aircraft kilometres 3.9%

Passengers 4.7%

Passenger kilometres 4.9%

Cargo 6.7%

Airports use large amounts of land, and
impose direct impacts on the natural environment and human communities.
Airports are major activity centers that often have significant ground
transportation congestion and are frequently a catalyst for low-density,
automobile-dependent land development.

Table 1 ICAO
Inventory of Environmental Impacts

Environmental Concern

Typical Sources

Aircraft noise

Noise in the vicinity of airports caused by
aircraft operations.

Engine testing and others noise sources at
airports.

Ground support vehicles and operations.

Sonic boom caused by supersonic aircraft

Noise caused by aircraft en-route

Air pollution near airports

Aircraft engine emissions (carbon monoxide,
nitrogen oxides, volatile

organic compounds, unburnt hydrocarbons)
during landing and take off cycle.

Emissions from airport ground service
vehicles.

Emissions from access traffic (automobiles,
buses, trains).

Emissions from other airport sources
(solvents, fuels, etc.).

Global phenomena

Long-range air pollution (eg. acid rain).

Greenhouse effect (combustion gases including
carbon dioxide, water,

carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, methane
).

Depletion of ozone layer (releases of
chlorofluorocarbon, oxides of nitrogen and high altitude vapour trails).

Airport and infrastructure construction

Loss of land.

Soil erosion.

Impact on water tables, river courses and
field drainage.

Destruction of natural resources (wetlands,
wildlife, ecosystems).

Impact on flora and fauna.

Water and soil pollution near airports

Water pollution caused by inadequate
treatment of contaminants in airport wastewaters.

This table lists various environmental impacts
associated with aviation.

Aviation and related activities are
considered prestigious and particularly important for economic development. As
a result, airports and some air services are often subsidized, directly and
indirectly, through favorable industrial, tax and regulatory policies (UBA,
2001). Policies that underprice aviation and favor it over other consumer
options violate Market Principles, and tend to be
economically harmful overall.

Demand management can increase the
efficiency and social benefits of aviation. For example, a Royal Commission on
Environmental Protection found (RCEP, 1994):

·A reduction in the
growth and rate of air travel would help considerably towards reducing, or at
least stabilizing, emissions from aircraft. It would also reduce the scale of
some of the other environmentally damaging effects of air transport, such as
noise and the loss of land for airports and surface links. (p.74, para 5.38).

·An unquestioning
attitude towards future growth in air travel, and an acceptance that the
projected demand for additional facilities and services must be met, are
incompatible with the aim of sustainable development, just as acceptance that
there will be a continuing growth in demand for energy would be incompatible.
Another parallel is with the forecast growth in road traffic…A comparable
change in attitude towards the growth of air transport is needed, only in this
case on an international scale. (p.75, para 5.39).

·We recommend that
policy on air services should be based on discouraging air travel for domestic
and near-European journeys for which rail is competitive, and that the
government should support the upgrading of rail links to the main international
airports in order to avoid the need for development of air feeder services from
regional airports. (p.207, para 12.50).

Short and medium-distance air trips tend to
compete with automobile and train travel, so the relative price and service
quality of these modes affects air travel volumes. For example, convenient,
affordable, high speed train service between major cities in France, Japan and Spain have reduced air traffic volumes on the same corridors.

How It Is Implemented

Aviation transport management programs can
be implemented by international agreements related to transportation,
environmental protection and tourist industry development; as part of national
transportation planning and investment programs; and by regional airport
authorities.

Current interregional transportation
planning tends to favor air travel over alternative modes, particularly
interregional bus. For example, For example, there are federal, state and
regional programs to support airports, and policies to maintain commercial
aviation service competition, but no similar programs for interregional bus
services (GAO, 2005). This has reduced the quality of alternatives.

Travel Impacts

Aviation transport management is a
relatively new concept so it is uncertain how much effect such programs can
have. Although some aviation traffic has very high value, much of the growth in
air transport appears to be relatively low value trips that are sensitive to
pricing and the quality of alternatives. It is likely that a coordinated
Aviation TDM program could significantly reduce air traffic growth rates.

Research by Hagler Bailly (1999) finds the
fuel price elasticity of airline travel seem to fall in the -0.25 to -0.45
range, which means that a 10% increase in fuel prices typically reduces airline
travel by 2.5% to 4.5%. The same study found that the long-run elasticity of
fuel use to aviation turbo fuel prices is -0.3, with a range of –0.2 to -0.45.
Research summarized in Davidson, Wit and Dings (2003) indicates the elasticity
of air travel with respect to ticket price is about 1.0, and fuel costs
represent about 10% of total operating costs, so doubling fuel costs or
imposing other fees of this magnitude would reduce air travel mileage about
10%.

Table 2 Travel Impact Summary

Objective

Rating

Comments

Reduces total
traffic.

3

Reduces peak
period traffic.

3

Shifts peak to
off-peak periods.

3

Shifts travel to
alternative modes.

2

May shift air
travel to other modes.

Improves access,
reduces the need for travel.

Increased
ridesharing.

Increased public
transit.

2

May shift air
and ground transport to transit.

Increased
cycling.

Increased
walking.

Increased
Telework.

1

May result in
some electronic substitution of physical travel.

Reduced freight
traffic.

2

Reduced air
freight may be an important component of aviation transport management.

Benefits and Costs

Benefits can include reduced congestion,
infrastructure, operating costs, air and noise pollution, crashes and land use
impacts associated with aviation and airport construction. Some Aviation TDM
strategies improve Transportation Choice for
medium-distance travel. Emission Reduction benefits
tend to be particularly large for reductions in high altitude jet travel.

Costs can include increased program and
planning costs, increased consumer prices and reduced consumer services (for
example, if reduced public subsidies result in closing down a local airport).

Table 3 Benefit Summary

Objective

Rating

Comments

Congestion
Reduction

3

Can reduce both
aviation and ground transportation congestion.

Facility Cost
Savings

1

Some automobile
traffic may be reduced, while some trips may shift from air to automobile.

Consumer Savings

-2

Some strategies
increase prices, although others reduce prices for alternatives.

Transport Choice

2

Some strategies
improve alternatives, such as rail transport.

Road Safety

0

Uncertain.

Environmental
Protection

3

Aviation has
high environmental costs, so managing aviation can provide significant
environmental benefits.

Efficient Land
Use

1

Some strategies
involve more efficient land use, particularly around airports.

Community
Livability

2

Aviation can
impose significant air and noise pollution, so managing aviation can
significantly improve community livability.

Equity Impacts

Equity impacts depend on which TDM
strategies are implemented and what perspective is used in the analysis.
Aviation is a relatively high-priced travel mode that tends to be used most by
higher-income travelers. As a result, aviation subsidies and underpricing tend
to be regressive (i.e., they benefit higher-income people more than
lower-income people). On the other hand, increasing aviation prices to
internalize costs makes air travel less affordable to lower- and middle-income
consumer, harming them directly (although the overall equity impacts depends on
how revenues are used).

Since aviation tends to dominate most
medium- and long-distance public transportation markets, alternatives such as
bus and rail have received little support. To the degree that Aviation TDM
involves improving these alternatives it can benefit people who are
transportation disadvantaged (particularly those with lower incomes), and
communities that do not have commercial airports.

Applications

Aviation TDM can apply in various
geographic areas, but tend to be most important in large urban regions with
large airports. Since federal, state/provincial and regional agencies do most
air transportation planning they have the greatest role in implementing
Aviation TDM. Local governments may be involved in airport land use and ground
transportation planning.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders include aviation,
transportation planning, land use planning, and environmental planning
agencies, local airport authorities, airlines, residents impacted by airports
and air traffic, travel agencies and related industries, and businesses that
depend heavily on air transport.

Barriers To Implementation

A major barrier to Aviation TDM is the
common assumption that growing air travel is particularly important to economic
development and deserves public support. The aviation industry has little
experience with demand management.

Design airports
to be compatible with surrounding landscape. Management and conservation of
wildlife and ecosystems at airports and the surrounding areas. Minimise use
of pesticides and herbicides. Conduct airport development in harmony with the
surrounding terrain, flora and fauna.

Environmental
laws and legislation

Review existing
municipal, regional and national laws and international conventions affecting
airports, airlines, travelling public, suppliers and manufacturers at large
so as to respond to a wide variety of political, social, economic and
technical initiatives emanating from local, national and international
bodies. Develop compatible policies and practices.

Technology
transfer and development

Learn from the
experiences from others. Share existing technologies. Encourage the
development of new technologies.

Monitor
performance and collect data to aid in prioritization of activities, decision
making, and to demonstrate compliance. Report synthesised data in order to
assess the nature of the problems and to be in a position to formulate
appropriate recommendations and standards.

Examples and Case Studies

Strategies for Sustainable Aviation (May, 2006; May and Hill,
2006)

Researchers May
and Hill argue that the unchecked growth of aviation, as generally assumed by
the aviation and tourism industries, and by governments, has significant risks,
because aviation is a major source of global warming emissions, imposes local
environmental impacts such as noise and air pollution, and the aviation
industry is vulnerable to increasing fuel prices. He recommends the following
policy reforms to encourage demand management in order to reduce aviation
impacts and risks:

Question projected growth of air transport.

Restructure and redesign aviation and air travel
to support strategic objectives.

Decoupling of transport and economic growth.

Critique the social and environmental costs of
economic globalisation.

Reframing tourism to rely less on long-distance
air travel.

Challenge aviation’s privileged position in
society

Provide economic incentives specific to manage
aviation demand.

Encourage modal shifts from air to less
energy-intensive modes such as rail.

Encourage telecommunications and information
technology to substitute for long-distance physical.

Encourage behaviour change by individuals.

Agencies to Suggest Changes to Ease La Guardia Delays

By MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times
/ June 6, 2001

WASHINGTON, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in an effort to relieve congestion at La Guardia Airport, plans to suggest
sharply raising landing fees or auctioning off landing slots.

The authority,
which runs the airport, plans to make its formal proposal to the Federal
Aviation Administration on Wednesday, according to officials at both agencies.
But it will face considerable opposition from airlines and some elected
officials.

The F.A.A. will
add other options to alleviate congestion, perhaps ordering airlines to cut the
number of flights or fly bigger planes, according to people who have been
briefed about the two agencies' proposals.

F.A.A. officials
said the solution chosen for La Guardia could be a model for other crowded
airports across the country, although La Guardia's problem is the worst.

"We continue
to believe that La Guardia is really unique; there are physical constraints
there we don't see at other airports," Jane Garvey, the F.A.A.
administrator, said today in a telephone interview. "But we also think we
can learn something."

Last summer, about
a quarter of the nation's air traffic delays were traceable to La Guardia, she
said, although the number has fallen to about 10 percent now.

La Guardia's
problems began about a year ago, after Congress lifted all restrictions on the
number of incoming flights, and airlines added so many flights that the airport
routinely experienced hundreds of long delays daily.

To address the
problem, in December the F.A.A. put a cap on the number of flights and
distributed the slots by lottery. The actions reduced congestion, but only
temporarily. The lottery system is supposed to expire on Sept. 15 and be
replaced by "market forces," the F.A.A. said. However, Ms. Garvey
said today that it would probably have to be extended.

The Port Authority
will raise as one possibility simply increasing landing fees sharply, which
planners hope would decrease the number of flights and encourage airlines to
use larger planes, spreading their higher cost among more passengers.

A key question,
though, is how the additional revenue will be spent. The Port Authority has
discussed investing it at other airports, including John F. Kennedy
International, to let that airport handle more traffic.

Various planners
have raised the idea of making improvements at Stewart Airport, near Newburgh,
N.Y., or making that airport easier to get to from New York City, to help turn
it into a fourth jetport for the area.

Neil Levin, the
executive director of the Port Authority, said that the idea was not to raise
more revenue. "The only goal here is to impact behavior of flights at La
Guardia," he said.

The airlines,
however, have already complained that there is no justification for raising
travelers' costs at La Guardia. And the authority may also face legal hurdles
in trying to raise landing fees above costs, according to one Congressional
staff member.

Mr. Levin,
stressing that the agency's proposals were simply starting points for debate,
said, "All we know is that we've got a problem there and the public is not
being well served by congestion."

Under its proposal
to auction off landing slots, the authority would give each airline a fixed
number of landings and takeoffs – the authority has discussed 10 of each as a
possible number – and allocate hundreds more slots in relation to market share.
About 20 percent of the slots would be put up for auction. The airport can
accommodate about 1,200 flights a day before problems arise.

The F.A.A. has
told Congressional staffers that another idea would be to control the problem
administratively, ordering the airlines to use bigger planes and reducing the
number of landings allowed. A provision of federal law gives the F.A.A. the
authority to ensure efficient use of air space, and some officials believe that
the F.A.A. could use that authority to limit flights, or to threaten the
airlines into taking measures to reduce traffic themselves.

Air travel has an unexpectedly large impact on the environment, according to a
new report from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD). The effect is felt on the ground as well as in the air, and is one
of the most intractable challenges for sustainable mobility because of rapid
growth and the absence of technological solutions.

Aircraft exhaust gases make a disproportionate contribution to global warming
because of the high altitudes at which they enter the atmosphere - typically
between nine and 13 kilometres above sea level.

At these altitudes, the global warming effect of the exhaust gases is roughly
twice what it would be on the ground, exacerbated by the
"contrails" formed from water vapor in the exhaust gases.

This multiplier effect means that aircraft emissions are much more
significant even than their fast-growing share of travel suggests.

Air travel growth may be affected by the terror attacks in the US, but it has been the most rapidly growing means of transport for decades. World
passenger traffic grew by 5% compound between 1985 and 1999 so that it now
accounts for more than a tenth of all transport energy consumption.

By 2015 its share is expected to reach 13% and Arve Thorvik, manager of the
WBCSD project, said there was little prospect of stemming that growth, which
is a side-effect of globalisation.

"High-speed trains can compete up to 1.5 hours flight time, but that
only affects Western Europe and parts of the US. Elsewhere it is difficult to
see the possibility of curbing growth."

Air travel has a significant impact around airports, as well as in the
stratosphere. Vehicle use by passengers and airport services adds to aircraft
emissions while taxiing, landing and take-off to make airports significant
pollution blackspots.

For example, Kennedy airport is a bigger source of volatile organic compounds
and nitrous oxides than the Hudson Avenue power plant in New York. Los Angeles airport is the second largest industrial smog source in the region.

Airport Sustainability Practices (ACRP, 2008)

According to a major study, many airports have
environmental monitoring or sustainability evaluation programs. Environmental
practices commonly in place at airports include measuring and monitoring water
conservation, water quality, climate change, air quality, land use,
biodiversity, environmentally sustainable materials, waste, noise and
aesthetics, energy, and green buildings.

Economic sustainability practices commonly in place at
airports include local hiring and purchasing, contributing to the community,
quantifying the value of sustainability practices, contributing to research and
development, and incentivizing sustainable behavior. Social concerns at
airports include public awareness and education, stakeholder relationships,
employee practices and procedures, sustainable transportation, alleviating road
congestion, accessibility, local culture and heritage, indoor environmental
quality, employee well-being, and passenger well-being.

Sustainable Aviation Policy (Grimley, 2006)

The following summarizes the PhD dissertation,
“Indicators Of Sustainable Development In Civil Aviation” by Paul Michael
Grimley.

There is a need to apply the principles of sustainable
development to the practice of the civil aviation industry. This research draws
on sustainable development literature, general systems theory and quality
principles to derive a holistic and systemic sustainable development model, and
a methodology for deriving indicators of sustainable development. These are
then applied to the civil aviation system, to select and construct indicators of
sustainable development in civil aviation. The indicator selection process is
participative, and seeks the views of stakeholders of UK civil aviation.
Stakeholders are asked, via a Delphi study, to give their views on the meaning
of sustainable aviation, and on the most important aspects of sustainable
development in civil aviation.

The research proposes a set of 29 indicators for
sustainable development in civil aviation, including institutional and
regulatory indicators. The research findings suggest that, amongst UK civil
aviation stakeholders, there is some consensus on the important sustainability
issues facing civil aviation, and on their choice of indicators. There is
little understanding of the meaning of sustainable aviation, and disagreement on
policies to adopt in favour of sustainable development in aviation. Amongst
stakeholders from civil aviation organisations, there is strong opposition to
regulatory or economic policies in favour of sustainable development. While the
safety of civil aviation is institutionalised, there is evidence to suggest
that opposition to other aspects of sustainable development is embedded in the
regulatory and operational organisations of civil aviation.

Airport Policies (DfT, 2003 and 2006)

Airport
environmental management policies that the UK government began implementing in
2003 have slowed aviation demand somewhat (though it is still increasing), and
has redistributed some air traffic to less congested routes, and encouraged the
accelerated purchase of cleaner, quieter aircraft. This program includes improving
and modernizing existing regional airports, as an alternative to building new
airports and new runways. At Heathrow, where a new runway could be needed in
the period 2015 to 2020, expanding the airport is conditional on meeting the
noise and air quality limits that we have set out. The Government has led work
to consider whether the environmental impact of making more use of existing
runways, or building a third runway, would be acceptable.

Airport Employee Commute Trip Management (Humphreys and
Ison, 2005)

The UK Department
for Transport has helped establish an Airport Transport Forum (ATF) to
encourage use of alternative modes for surface travel to major airports, such
as encouraging employees to use public transit rather than drive. Specific
policy strategies to help achieve this objective include improving public
transit service to airports, develop worksite travel plans with specific trip
reduction targets, ridesharing, car parking pricing policies and road user
charges.

Aviation Environment Federation (www.aef.org.uk) is a UK based not-for-profit Non-Governmental Organisation that works exclusively on the
environmental impacts of aviation. It promotes a sustainable future for
aviation which takes account of the environmental and amenity effects of air
travel.

Robert Damuth (2008), The
Economic Impacts and Social Benefits of the U.S. Motorcoach Industry Binding
the Nation Together by Providing Diverse and Affordable Services for Everyone,
American Bus Association (www.buses.org); at
www.buses.org/files/Report08.pdf.

Strategic Aviation Special Interest
Group (www.sasig.org)
seeks to ensure that there is a national aviation strategy for the UK that reconciles economic, social and environmental issues in a sustainable way.

Paul Upham (2002), A Comparison
Of Sustainability Theory With UK And European Airports Policy And Practice,
Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan
University (www.doc.mmu.ac.uk/aric/index.html),
2000.

This Encyclopedia is
produced by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute to help improve
understanding of Transportation Demand Management. It is an ongoing project.
Please send us your comments and suggestions for improvement.